Implementing an AGV System

Questions to Ask and What to Observe

	Site Visits
	Who Should Go Questions to Ask and What to Observe How to Evaluate What You See and Hear

When you visit one or more sites you should try to ask the same types of questions to be able to compare vendors performance. These questions can focus on several areas of interest.

General

• How reliable have the vehicles been?
• Do you have a comprehensive service manual with parts list?
• What was your opinion of the maintenance training you received?
• What has been your experience with troubleshooting support from your vendor?
• What has been your experience with parts availability?
• How much maintenance do you have to do to support the AGV system?
• Are the users of the AGV system able to easily interact with it without causing operational problems? If not, what kinds of operator/system problems occur?
• What was the initial user acceptance attitude? How did it progress?
• Is the system being used differently than as originally planned? If so, why?

Mechanical

• What mechanical parts have been replaced and was this due to wear, damage or failure?
• Have you found that the mechanical design of the vehicle is hard or easy to service?
• What is your impression regarding the robustness of the equipment design?
• How often do you have to make mechanical adjustments and to what areas?
• What are the mechanical areas that could be improved and how?

Controls

• What electronic parts have been replaced and was this due to wear, damage or failure?
• Have you found that the controls design and layout is hard or easy to service?
• Is there adequate documentation to troubleshoot and service the AGV control systems?
• What is your opinion of the user friendliness of the control system?
• Have you found any serious limitations to the control system’s capabilities (expansion, change, additional functionality)?
• What are your most liked aspects of the controls and what are the most disliked and why?

Software

• Was the documentation provided for the operational level of software adequate?
• How user friendly is the system software? Are there few or many rules for operators to learn?
• Have there been software bugs? If so, what were they and how long did it take to resolve them?
• Is it easy or hard to recover from a system software problem?
• Have you found that your system software is highly custom? If so, has there been any vendor support issues?

What to Observe

• How well does AGV traffic co-exist with other aisle traffic?
• Visit the maintenance shop and note how it is laid out for AGV service.
• Are all areas serviced by the AGV system actually being utilized? If not, why?
• Note quality of installation. Are controls well protected?
• How many hours are on each AGV? (Note AGV hour meter)
• Note movement/flow of AGVs. How efficient is the traffic coordination?
• Have the AGVs been hit? If so, how well did they survive?
• Are there any unnecessarily exposed or vulnerable parts on the AGV?
• Is this a highly standard AGV design used by other customers or is it a fairly unique design?